Partition of Ireland

IPP leader Charles Stewart Parnell convinced British Prime Minister William Gladstone to introduce the First Irish Home Rule Bill in 1886.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd George supported "the principle of the referendum...each of the Ulster Counties is to have the option of exclusion from the Home Rule Bill.

Gentlemen described themselves to me simply as messengers, without any power or authority to discuss these questions in any way whatever with me, and they informed me that it was the intention of the Government to introduce a Bill containing these provisions practically whether we liked it or not.

[59] On 29 March 1920 Charles Craig (son of Sir James Craig and Unionist MP for County Antrim) made a speech in the British House of Commons where he made clear the future make up of Northern Ireland: "The three Ulster counties of Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal are to be handed over to the South of Ireland Parliament.

[64] In his Twelfth of July speech, Unionist leader Edward Carson had called for loyalists to take matters into their own hands to defend Ulster, and had linked republicanism with socialism and the Catholic Church.

[78] On 5 May 1921, the Ulster Unionist leader Sir James Craig met with the President of Sinn Féin, Éamon de Valera, in secret near Dublin.

De Valera's policy in the ensuing negotiations was that the future of Ulster was an Irish-British matter to be resolved between two sovereign states, and that Craig should not attend.

[83] In reply, de Valera wrote We most earnestly desire to help in bringing about a lasting peace between the peoples of these two islands, but see no avenue by which it can be reached if you deny Ireland's essential unity and set aside the principle of national self-determination.

"[84]Ulster Unionist Party politician Charles Craig (the brother of Sir James Craig) made the feelings of many Unionists clear concerning the importance they placed on the passing of the Act and the establishment of a separate Parliament for Northern Ireland: "The Bill gives us everything we fought for, everything we armed ourselves for, and to attain which we raised our Volunteers in 1913 and 1914...but we have many enemies in this country, and we feel that an Ulster without a Parliament of its own would not be in nearly as strong a position...where, above all, the paraphernalia of Government was already in existence...We should fear no one and would be in a position of absolute security.

The British delegation consisted of experienced parliamentarians/debaters such as Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Austen Chamberlain and Lord Birkenhead, they had clear advantages over the Sinn Féin negotiators.

Under its terms, the territory of Southern Ireland would leave the United Kingdom within one year and become a self-governing dominion called the Irish Free State.

The treaty was given legal effect in the United Kingdom through the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922, and in Ireland by ratification by Dáil Éireann.

Under the former Act, at 1 pm on 6 December 1922, King George V (at a meeting of his Privy Council at Buckingham Palace)[88] signed a proclamation establishing the new Irish Free State.

[90] Under Article 12 of the Treaty,[91] Northern Ireland could exercise its opt-out by presenting an address to the King, requesting not to be part of the Irish Free State.

Collins was primarily responsible for drafting the constitution of the new Irish Free State, based on a commitment to democracy and rule by the majority.

[99] The pro-treaty side argued that the proposed Boundary Commission would give large swathes of Northern Ireland to the Free State, leaving the remaining territory too small to be viable.

[104] The second Pact consisted of ten Articles which called for an end to all IRA activity in Northern Ireland and the setting up of a special police force that would represent the two communities.

Essentially, those who put down the amendments wished to bring forward the month during which Northern Ireland could exercise its right to opt out of the Irish Free State.

They justified this view on the basis that if Northern Ireland could exercise its option to opt out at an earlier date, this would help to settle any state of anxiety or trouble on the new Irish border.

[114] The Anglo-Irish Treaty (signed 6 December 1921) contained a provision (Article 12) that would establish a boundary commission, which would determine the border "...in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions...".

[117] In Southern Ireland the new Parliament fiercely debated the terms of the Treaty yet devoted a very small amount of time on the issue of partition – just nine out of 338 transcript pages.

"[116] In September 1924 Winston Churchill made a speech (while out of political office) in which he made his feelings clear on the partition of Ireland: "On the one side will be Catholics, tending more and more to Republicanism; on the other Protestants, holding firmly to the British Empire and the Union Jack...No result could be more disastrous to Irish national aspirations..."[120] A small team of five assisted the commission in its work.

[124][125] The Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill was quoted on the terms of the cancellation of the Irish war debt: "I made a substantial modification of the financial provisions.

Commission member Fisher stated to the Unionist leader Edward Carson that no area of importance had been ceded to the Irish Government: “If anybody had suggested twelve months ago that we could have kept so much I would have laughed at him”.

The pro-Treaty Cumann na nGaedheal government of the Free State hoped the Boundary Commission would make Northern Ireland too small to be viable.

[142] During the Second World War, after the Fall of France, Britain made a qualified offer of Irish unity in June 1940, without reference to those living in Northern Ireland.

London would have declared that it accepted 'the principle of a United Ireland' in the form of an undertaking 'that the Union is to become at an early date an accomplished fact from which there shall be no turning back.

This civil rights campaign was opposed by loyalists and hard-line unionist parties, who accused it of being a republican front to bring about a united Ireland.

[7] This unrest led to the August 1969 riots and the deployment of British troops, beginning a thirty-year conflict known as the Troubles (1969–98), involving republican and loyalist paramilitaries.

[156] While not explicitly mentioned in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the Common Travel Area between the UK and the Republic of Ireland, EU integration at that time and the demilitarisation of the boundary region provided by the treaty resulted in the virtual dissolution of the border.